The Wapiti and his Antlers. 



61 



and 6oin. ; width, 50! in. ; fourteen points. Caton, in his excellent 

 work " The Deer of America," remarks (page 216) that this head is 

 the largest head he knew, "5ft. being the extreme length of which I 

 have authentic account." The distinguished American naturalist 

 and Director of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, the late 

 Professor Spencer Baird, states, in a letter now before me, that 

 they exceed in length " by a few inches " those in the National 



WAPITI ANTLERS DUG OUT OF QUICKSANDS IN THE 

 SALINE RIVER (KANSAS). 



Museum at Washington, which is the National Natural History 

 Collection of the United States. In the last chat I enjoyed with 

 this distinguished naturalist a short time before his sudden death, 

 we were discussing the size of the pre-historic wapiti. A passage 

 in a letter from him referring to this subject runs : " We have a 

 broken part of a shed horn, embracing burr, portion of shaft 

 (beam), base of brow antler, and a portion of second brow antler 



